The Rice

1. Cook the rice. Measure sushi rice and rinse the rice 2-3 times until the cloudy water runs clear. I use a rice cooker to steam my rice. Add butter and salt into your rice cooker. It’s important to butter and salt the rice before cooking. If you are using a pot on the stove just follow the directions on the packaging to cook the rice… but make sure to add the butter and salt as well. If you don’t want to use butter you can substitute with olive oil. 

While the rice is cooking start prepping the other ingredients. 

1. Chop carrot, zucchini and onion into small bite-sized pieces and put in separate bowls. For the carrot and zucchini, I cut them into sticks and then into cubes. For the onion just dice it and set aside in a bowl.
2. Start cooking the pound of bacon.  Cook in batches in a large sauté pan (or two) and move cooked pieces to a paper towel lined paper plate. Reserve the bacon fat in a ramekin. Let bacon cool before chopping into bite-sized pieces. NOTE: While the bacon is cooking you should be able to do some other prep work.
3. Chop scallions (including white parts) into small pieces and set aside in a bowl.
4. Finely dice 3 cloves of garlic and set aside in a ramekin.
5. Put carrots in a med sauté pan with a drizzle of olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper to taste. You want to cook these first because they take longer than the zucchini and onion. Give the carrots a toss around the pan then cook the carrots – COVERED – on low heat for five minutes. Stir a couple of times. Remove from heat and leave covered another 3-5 minutes then remove the lid and leave the carrots in that pan. 
6. Cut three inches of ginger from a root. Slice the skin off the sides using your knife and grate it using a microplane tool. If you don’t have that just use a knife and finely chop it. 
7. Chop your bacon into bite-sized pieces. 
8. Crack eggs in a bowl with a pinch of salt and beat them well. 
9. At this point in the cooking process, your rice is probably done or near to being done. I like to wait to start cooking the zucchini and onion until the rice is completed. 
10. Add chopped zucchini to the carrots and cook on medium heat. There should be enough olive oil from cooking the carrots so no need to add anymore yet. Stir well then put lid on and cook on low to medium heat for 3 minutes – then remove the lid. You don’t want to completely cook the zucchini. When it gets added to the wok with the rice it will continue cooking and you don’t want it to turn to mush. Cook the zucchini until al dente. 
11. Add onions to carrot/zucchini mixture and a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of salt. Mix well, then cook on low/medium heat. The onions will become slightly translucent in just a couple of minutes. 
12. Add the chopped bacon into the veggie mix and stir well.  
13. Make a well in center of veggies and add your garlic, ginger and either a drizzle of olive oil or the reserved bacon fat. Cook for a minute or so until fragrant. 
14. Add 1 tablespoon of bacon fat OR a drizzle of olive oil to your wok or another (larger) pan with a pinch of salt and put on medium heat. Let it get hot.
15. Add HALF the sushi rice to the wok and let it sizzle for a minute or tw. If you want to crisp your rice a little, that’s a personal choice. I don’t usually do that. Now add half of the veggie/bacon mix on top of the rice. Mix well with a sturdy tool like a wooden spatula.
16. Add the remaining rice, then the remaining veggie/bacon mix on top of that.
17. At this point, you will need two cooking utensils to manage the quantity of rice. I use my big wooden spatula paddle and my white rice cooker paddle.
18. Add ¾ of the scallion to the mix and blend throughout. Set aside the rest to garnish your rice.
19. LAST STEP: pour the beaten eggs directly onto the fried rice. I like to pour it in a swirl so it is evenly distributed. The rice is extremely hot at this point so be careful not to burn yourself. The egg will cook completely so don’t worry that you are going to eat raw egg. You will see how fast the egg cooks and coats the rice giving it a slightly yellow hue. Mix in the egg well until it's coating all the rice.